The SRW Cast List Bunker
by Mattman324
Summary: A compilation of some silly SRW cast lists that I've thought up and put some work into, but didn't want to actually focus on. Also contains a prologue chapter that is a "how to" guide on writing (and creating fangames for) a SRW.
1. Preface, or: How To Make A SRW

Hello, readers! This Index is here for SRWs I have conceived, spent time with, and considered "decent bases" in the past, but which, for various reasons, I don't have time to continue or do not actually ever intend on working on. This is a repository for only the best of ideas, as bad ones or ones that I dislike immensely... like, say, every SRW I tried to work on before 2014 that isn't the prototype of FIRST - get thrown out the back of the truck, never to be mentioned in any official medium again (But to be held back in case I get ideas later to fix them).

To preface this, however, I'm going to start with something rather different - a SRW making guide, for all the people of the internet to enjoy, which will help you make a SRW cast list that stands firm.

 **First things first: Your dream cast list is bad.**

Yes, get over it. This is something you NEED to understand, if you are to get better. If you just stick all your favorite series into one game all pell-mell, the ensuing cast list is going to look absolutely terrible. Here's an example of a cast list I would make if I took leave of my senses and just stuck series I like - or even just series that look cool - and one or two accompanying movies/OVAs together.

~Gaiking: Legends of Daiku Maryu

~Whirlwind! Iron Leaguer

~Whirlwind! Iron Leaguer: Under The Banner of Silver Castle (New to SRW)

~Combat Mecha Xabungle

~Fang of the Sun Dougram (New to SRW)

~Mobile Suit Gundam

~Mobile Suit Gundam: Blue Destiny (New to SRW)

~Mobile Suit Gundam: IGLOO (New to SRW)

~Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (New to SRW)

~Mobile Suit Gundam 00

~SD Gundam Sangokuden: Brave Battle Warriors

~BB Senshi Sangokuden (New to SRW)

~Tetsujin 28 (2004) (New to SRW)

~Tetsujin 28: The Midday Moon (New to SRW)

~Terrestrial Defense Corporation Dai-Guard

~Psycho Armor Govarian (New to SRW)

~Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo

~Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures! (New to SRW)

~Fafner: Right of Left (New to SRW)

~Fafner in the Azure

~Fafner: Heaven and Earth

~Fafner Exodus (New to SRW)

~Star Driver: Takuto The Radiance

~Star Driver THE MOVIE (New to SRW)

~The Brave of Gold Goldran (New to SRW)

~Strongest Robo Daiohja

~Meteor Machine Gakusaver (New to SRW)

~Beautiful Young Girls Machine Z-Mind (New to SRW)

And if I look at that cast list, I see... an absolute mess! A bit of deep space, a bit of other-planet work, a bit of post apoc, a bit of "the apocalypse happened ages ago", some series where robots are all new things, some series where robots have been around for the longest time, a couple of sequels that happen years apart from each other on the same cast list as shows that happen in a really small timeframe, and of course the festering sore where some robots on this list _aren't even made for combat._ Perhaps worse than all of that, though, are the series that I have no way of actually viewing - Daiohja and Govarian look cool and I love their concepts, but since I don't understand Japanese, how am I to understand them? Similarly, I've never gone through any of the side things for the original Gundam. And BB Senshi is probably going to take ages of wiki hunting and the horrible barrier of Google Translate to get much info on.

But perhaps the big thing here, the noticeable thing that gets me - the size. That's over 25 series, and while one or two probably won't have plot, quite a number will. Cast size is one thing I never see people pay much attention to, but it always gets me that people pen up these 30+ series behemoths, somehow not realizing that 30 plus series worth of characters and plot will inherently need done. This is a large number, and it's larger than you might expect.

But let's go over these flaws in order.

 **Having a bunch of settings means having a bunch of things that don't work together.**

Now, in making a SRW, it is almost certain that some setting details won't work. You want to write a SRW with Dancouga, that's great, but you probably won't do the "Earth is totally taken over by aliens" bit - I mean, SRW only did that one time with Dancouga. Any Macross after SDF is probably going to ignore having 20+ years of space development, deep space combat, intense focus on the Valkyrie to the point where every other mech is pointless since they do basically anything better. You might have a series or two early in mech development clashing with others far later. That's going to happen, it's inevitable, and part of the clash in making a good crossover is figuring out how to work around that, and which bits of which settings are going to get pushed to the side (or pushed away completely) to make it work as a cohesive whole.

Your first impulse might be to just throw things in from another universe. This is, after all, Banpresto's all time winning move, and has been used to great prevail in past SRWs - you're going to quote things like the Zs, I know it, but let's ignore those and remember how D handled Megazone, or how MX handled Machine Robo, or how Compact 3 handled New Dunbine. All of those games are significantly far into SRWs past... and they had "just drop one universe's cast into the plot with no setting details really". And it clearly works out well!

...for Banpresto.

The thing is, Banpresto isn't making games the same way you're making fanfiction (or fangames, even, but we'll get to THAT). A long time ago, Banpresto's way of making SRW was, essentially, "Ignore like 75% of the settings, we have one generic plotline and maybe two enemy groups and all the casts fit into that." (Said enemy groups including the Divine Crusaders, the Neo Divine Crusaders, the Guests, the Guest/Poseidal Alliance, Muge Zolbados's Empire, Balmar on a few occasions, A and R's enemy factions that were all working together for no real reason, the Meganoid/Muge Zolbados alliance, the various major UC Gundam alliances, the Vegan Empire in D, GC's three big enemy alliances...) And that worked for game purposes, but was kind of dumb plotwise, so don't do stupid things like that unless it somehow actually fits your setting for every single enemy to want to work together.

But that changed in more recent years. Over time, Banpresto's included more varied series, and their plots started being actual good crossover plots. But including a bunch of varied series means they have to pay more people, and soon there became an issue of "we can't spend a lot for a license to a series and then not include it, the money is too much. We need to take what we can get." On top of that, as animation got trickier, the reuse of assets that has been in this franchise since SRW 2 has gotten a lot bigger of a deal. That's what happens to their cast lists now, they're more about using things the can get ahold of easily and have animations/models for.

And this is where you differ. As a fan who isn't turning a profit on anything, you don't release an official product, and nor do you pay any costs to make anything. Thus, your cast list can include whatever you want, and you can afford to make it all fit into a single theme. Because of this, nothing should be out of place, and since nothing is out of place, you don't need to resort to lazy "and then X came from another universe and this was barely used at all afterwards" storytelling.

Though, I should point out, there's exceptions to be made when your cast list already includes stuff like that. It wouldn't be right for Raijin-Oh to omit beings from other universes, for instance, or Dancouga, or Cross Ange, or Gakusaver, or Might Gaine for example. But these are big plot elements, and should be treated as such. Z1 has people from all sorts of universes, but that's a major part of its plot - the various settings were forced together despite not quite fitting, and you're trying to make the new world better. (And even then it had issues - Aquarion's world was never visited before Break The World, for instance.)

Since you can't just throw every setting in from other universes, you're stuck making your various settings work. This will make or break your SRW depending on how well you handle it. If the various settings don't work, you'll have to take bits of each series out, and if you take too much of a series out, anyone who's a fan of that series is going to be annoyed. This is the issue that some shows (a huge example is Braiger, which has been in 3 games and has been properly represented in 0) have a lot of in SRW, but a bunch of other series have gotten things shoved to the side - in fact, I think every single show that has gotten in SRW has gotten important details pushed to the side for reasons of plot. That's going to happen. But you're trying to include various series in SRW, not things that are vaguely resembling various series, so you need to keep setting details around or it won't work. The key is striking a good balance, which is of course far more difficult than it sounds.

Oh, and if you can't fit a series into your plot, or if you realize your game's plot is moving to places that make a series not work, don't try to keep said series in anyway. It will stick out like a sore. On the other hand, if your cast list is looking a little small, but a series fits in really well, put it in! And then integrate it properly of course, don't just shove new series in like children shove pegs into holes they shouldn't go in.

(I'm adding this bit in as an edit, because it bears mentioning. There exists a fanfic - that is only the prologue - with SEVENTY FOUR SEPARATE SERIES on its cast list. I can in absolutely no way fathom what sort of insanity the author had to undergo to reach that total. AND THEY'RE STILL TRYING TO FIT MORE IN! I... I just can't take this silliness. Never, ever, do that.)

 **Timeskips, and why you should handle them like guns.**

Sequels are things that are going to get in SRW all the time. They're inevitable. Why, even looking at the next upcoming release - as of this writing it's V - I can see that we have Zeta, its sequel (ZZ Gundam), their sequel, Char's Counterattack, the sequel to that, Hathaway's Flash, another sequel, Unicorn Gundam, and of course Crossbone Gundam which is a sequel to all of them. (And its two sequels.) And then we have all three Rebuild movies released as of its announcement, the full FMP timeline... we've got sequels to spare. And most of the time, when you include sequels, you have to worry about the time that comes between one work and the next. Sometimes you don't (Zeta and ZZ happen right after each other), but if you're talking about, say, the various Fafner works, Right of Left is months before the series, Heaven and Earth is years later, and Exodus is years after that. So including all of them in one game is impossible unless you either change the timeline on everything - which may be very problematic - include unnecessary time travel, which is ALWAYS problematic, or if you make a time skip! Indeed, time skips seem like the simple and elegant way to handle things like that.

They're not. They're a trap. A big trap.

This is a bit more a problem with video games than with just fanfiction, as with fanfiction you don't need to have portraits and voice changes and things that aren't in the original show made up wholecloth. But even in those, just including a year or two long timeskip might change the flow of everything dramatically.

For instance, let's say I have Fafner, Heaven And Earth... and then we'll say shows like Ga Keen, Ginguiser, and other silly 70s shows. Fafner ends, and HaE is two years later, so that's a two year time skip... so, since the other shows started beforehand and ended afterwards, you mean Earth was at war with aliens and underground empires and itself for TWO YEARS offscreen? What happened to the characters? Did anyone die? That's a problem if your cast contains elderly people, like if, say, Zambot 3 or something was on the cast list. Were they forced to fight for years with no end in sight? Have major plot points happened? Two whole fucking years have happened, you can't just brush that under a carpet! UX shortened that exact time skip to six months and there are still weird issues (Anticross and Katou are just kind of still in the same position they were beforehand, Al Azif was missing for all six damn months, Joey didn't age a day despite being really young... Arnie's one of the few things that changed.)

But it gets worse when you put things like Gurren Lagann, Gunbuster, Change! Getter Robo!, or, god forbid you try, Gundam AGE on the cast list and seriously want to have all facets of it. Or if you want to run all of UC chronologically. Or if you have SDF Macross and any Macross work after Plus (which still has horrible issues, but compared to the later ones it's small potatoes). Ten plus years should be a HUGE effect on literally the entire cast. But if only some of the cast has changed, and the rest are still fairly the same... well, you're going to have problems.

So watch out the minute large gaps of time start happening. Anything past six months is suspect. And watch out before trying to skip past timeskips by having things at various points in the timeline happen together, like how they used to do UC Gundam - it's difficult to do right, and it will usually look silly (see also Neo Zeon and Zeon existing at the same time in Alpha 1. And Zanscare, and the Cosmo Babylonia, and the Titans.).

Oh, and since it's not enough for its own column, be similarly careful of any show or OVA that has its entire plot resolved in a matter of days at most. Things like Tales of Neo Byston Well, Wings of Rean, like half of the VOTOMs OVAs, Giant Gorg, and all three of Megazone 23's parts. (In fact, throw in most OVAs here.) You will need a very good reason to stop their plot to go back to other things, or you'll handle an entire series in like two or three consecutive stages - while that's somewhat allowable for sequels (Mazinkaiser vs Ankoku Daishogun and Dancouga: Requiem For The Lost, for instance, will likely just be effective final battles for their series), for full plot series, it doesn't work.

 **ALWAYS EXPERIENCE EVERY SERIES YOU PUT IN.**

 **NEVER EVER RELY ON SECOND HAND INFORMATION TO A SERIES YOU'RE INCLUDING.**

 **THIS INCLUDES OTHER SRW GAMES OR FAN WORKS.**

You know all that stuff about how important it is to make your settings work? How important it is to make each series stand out? Well, the only way you can know how everything works is by actually knowing the setting. Which means you have to watch the shows, or read the manga, or play the games.

"oh but maaaaatt, this series works perfectly for my setting, I know because I read it on Wikipedia/tvtropes/it was in a SRW game"

NO. That is not a good enough reason. It is impossible to understand everything about a story just by reading summaries of the story, because they can and will miss important things that will come in handy. This is ESPECIALLY true for any MotW show, because a good thing to do with those is to include episode plots, and summaries of episode plots of most shows are typically rare things indeed. Older ones too.

Fortunately, there is an out for this one. You need to have watched a show before you do most of the plot, but when you're just planning everything, it's not always required. If I seriously got it in my head to make a post-apocalyptic SRW, and it was supposed to be an apocalypse that happened thousands of years ago, then throwing Turn A Gundam in is a no brainer, even if I haven't yet watched it. But then I would have to watch it to ensure it works well in my fan product, or else I'd get setting details, the character traits, and other such things wrong.

If you are attempting to include a series that you are unable to understand, because you don't speak the language it's from and it doesn't have subs or at least a dub in your language (relying on dubs is a bad idea, but it CAN work, especially if it's a European dub for a 70s/80s Super Robot show since those are apparently quite accurate), then do not include it. You're going to make anyone who likes that series annoyed as you get everything about it wrong, because you may as well not be using that series at that point - you're just using an original series that looks like it.

This should really be common sense - I mean, it's experiencing a product before you do things with it - but I've seen an unnerving number of people who DON'T watch their works before throwing it all in. And even if you don't intend to use the setting and just want characters, yes, you still need to watch the series - for the characters you intend on using, or a good look at the robots in action.

As an aside, for video game series, it's really best if you play and understand them yourself, as opposed to, say... watching an LP or somesuch. I'm not saying you can't do that, but it tends to be a bad idea.

 **Don't build big things, build small things and work to big things.**

Let's run some math, ok? I have 30 series. Some of these series will only provide one robot with one form, perhaps, but others might provide 10 units or more. Most of them will provide 3 or 4 though, so on average, we'll go with 5. 30 series with 5 units means that if I were writing a fanfic, I'd need to keep track of 120 units every time, and if I were making a fangame, that's 120 units I need to balance, make sprites for, possibly make animations for - since some people only care about those - and everything else. Do you think you can keep track of 120 units at any given point? If you answered "yes", good for you, you're wrong. This is literally Z3's problem, they had to basically wholecraft a lot of units animations, and so most of them inevitably looked like crap (and when they didn't do it right, it looked bad too - Boost Nova Knuckle, looking at you.), but it applies to a lot of other works.

On top of that, if you're making a game, how many units will the ENEMIES have? Quite a few, I imagine. Probably at least 8 unique ones, if you give them decent due. You have to work on those too.

But it goes beyond how many robots and monsters there are - how many CHARACTERS do you think 30 series would contain, if you gave each setting their due? 500? 600? More, maybe? There's quite a lot there, after all. Can you write 600 characters, keeping them fairly consistent to the setting? Hell, can you even keep 20 consistent to their original setting? Do all of these characters get their due, as well? You'll probably have 150 or so people roving around on your battleships by the endgame at the very least, will you focus on one or two or will all of them get focus? And if they do that, then how?

Giant series lists are a trap. They look enticing, but the bigger they are, the harder it is to keep everything stable on them. And if you handle everything poorly, people are going to notice. Look at Z3 - it handled things poorly, people noticed, and despite it having all sorts of series and things people love, it's become an extraordinarily hated game.

So, you want it to be big? You want it to be extravagant? Then you can still do that, of course. But do it in 20 series or less. Trust me, even if you have a dinky cast list with 14 or so important series, you can still make it very big, just by choosing your series right. After all, some series come with big casts, and lots of opportunities for allies to join up.

(As an aside, a great thing to do is to look for series that SRW has had in the past, but either rarely uses the plot for - like Toei Mazinger Z or Getter Robo - or only uses certain bits of its plot for - like G Gundam and Braiger - and go crazy with them. One man's refuse might give you 10 full units and a truckload of "scenarios" worth of plot.)

 **Some of these can be partly ignored, IF the cast list works with it.**

Remember how I said time skips potentially bring large issues into play? If every one of your series is built around the idea that at some point, a major time skip of a certain amount of time is going to happen, then it's fine. Remember how I said large cast lists were bad? They certainly are, but if you have a lot of individual movies or OVAs or bits of side things - like, say, including Tales of Neo Byston Well purely to provide your Dunbine work with Sirbine - then that can make your cast list very big without changing the number of core parts or scenarios that need work on that much. I brought up in the "things from alternate universes" section that some series make that an inevitability, so that's a thing, but do watch out that you handle it properly in that case.

That said, if you're going to do something that would normally be a bad idea, take a moment or two to think about whether or not it is actually worth doing this thing. Don't just blindly rush in and do it. That's a bad idea.

 **Don't make your fan work an extended character/setting bash.**

That setting has FANS. It doesn't matter if it's the shittiest work to have ever been made, you will certainly find people who liked Tobikage whatever the setting is. Some "this thing is silly" is allowable, sure - people getting frustrated at the Geass cast ditching Zero when he definably didn't do all that much actual wrongdoing to them, for instance - but constantly shitting on a setting is wrong. If you're going to do that, don't even include the setting in the first place, you clearly aren't giving it any respect.

This should be extraordinarily obvious, but there exists a SRW fanfiction right now which is literally 50% a setting bash, and most of it not a horribly accurate one either. So clearly it's been lost to some people. (Of course, even if the author were to read this, I doubt they'd make the connection.)

 **The more you attempt to make your story AWESOME!, the less actually awesome it is.**

(or "one man's AMAZING is another man's Chuuni.")

SRW is a franchise in which a bunch of various robots get together to punch other robots and giant beasts and similar insane things. It has characters from all sorts of settings interact with each other, heroes working together to fight villains, lives being saved, settings being made happier (usually), and is altogether a fun, great environment. But you will find that some people don't enjoy that sort of thing, and will find the idea of the series stupid. Most of those people find the concept inherently dumb, trying too hard to be great, or whatever, and from their point of view, it is. This is because all people view the world through the prism of their experiences and knowledge. (That's also the central bit to literally every UNDERSTANDING series so if you somehow don't get those, there you go.)

Fair enough. You're not designing your work for them. Entertainment does not need to be entertaining for everyone everywhere. But it is important to learn from the fact that these people exist, because it segues into the bulk of this point.

A lot of people who actually take the time to write extensive amounts of SRW fanfiction seem to believe that it doesn't really need to make sense, as everything can run on how AWESOME the stuff going on is! Bigger upgrades! Bigger fights! Constant big moments! Everything is as big as it can be!

This is dumb. Don't do it.

I'm not saying, however, that big, flashy events are an altogether bad thing. That's false. I want to see the big moments from whatever series are in the work, and I want to see them get their big break. That's great, and I love it. But the minute you start trying to make your entire work about how many AWESOME things are going on is also the minute you start forgetting important things, like not making basic writing flaws, and not screwing up all of your settings horribly.

Big, flashy things might be fun for the readers - or game players, or what have you - at the time they first experience it, but you can be absolutely ascertained that people are going to come around who aren't so impressed by your big, flashy things, and are going to focus on the fact that flash typically implies lack of substance. And eventually, your big, flashy moment wears off, and people will forget about it. Contrawise, some people may not be won over by a more utilitarian work, but if it's solidly built and everything works together, people are going to remember it.

Remember, SRWs that try to be big and flashy but fail become big and flashy failures - there's a reason K is so disliked - but if you make something fairly solid but not flashy, you'll at least succeed as a cult hit like GC. Of course, there's also OE, which is neither flashy nor good, but that's entirely a different issue altogether.

 **As the antithesis of the Don't Bash Things bit, don't wank them either.**

No, this setting is not inherently superior to all the others, and no, its characters are not godly heroes who everyone looks up to and always are right. Stop it. It doesn't work that way. Not only are you now annoying everyone who came for the other shows and have to watch one setting take over everything they were going to do, you're also annoying some of the fans of that show, who wanted everyone to be in character, which you likely are failing at if you're wanking this hard.

This is also fairly simple and I haven't seen it TOO much, outside of the general "USE THESE AWESUM CHARACTERS PURELY BECAUSE THEIR BAD DONKEYS" and whatnot.

 **If a setting actually IS that much above the others, why the hell is it on your cast list?**

I get that low and high power series get mixed in SRW all the time, but if your solution to literally every problem can and should just be "throw X thing at it" where X is the same thing from the same series every time, that's bad balance. Same with having series that basically require everyone to be in a shit state (like early Gundam SEED) when in fact you have a small army consisting of... I dunno, Mazinkaiser, Shin Getter Robo, Dygenguar, the V2AB Gundam, 00 Quanta, and Gaiking The Great amongst other things. It just straight up doesn't follow.

UX had the issue where most of its series would have MC robots far and away from everything else in the setting, but by the endgame, no setting was superfluous, at least one unit from all of them were able to stand up to things like Deus Ex Machina and the Vajra Frontier and Liber Legis and Kali Yuga. That was fine. Of course, UX had like half the setting be either using power that can be most accurately described as godlike (Celestial Armor, the OG hax, Demonbane in general, Linebarrel Override, Mark Sein in general, MAXGOD, that sort of thing) or just be really absurdly powerful (the Aura Battlers, Ninja crap, SEED Destiny's units, 00 Quanta, Valkyries in general by the Frontier era), so maybe that's not your best idea.

Note that some big powerful things can be played around. Like, for instance, Gunbuster is easy to play around. Half of its attacks would absolutely destroy the biosphere if they were realistically used in it, and it's a massive 250 meter tall behemoth that can move at fractions of c so that can't be good either. Of course, in space, the issue of "can't Gunbuster just literally start each fight with Homing Laser and basically win?" is notable, but oh well.

By the way: If your setting includes beings at an actual Capital G God level, and you intend to let the player have these for more than three or four stages, you've screwed up, because by that point, why haven't they just written the problems out of existence? Surely Ayato could just glare sharply at the Galaxy Fleet ringleaders and end the entire Vajra malarkey, being as Shinrei Rahxephon is reality rewriting level of power.

 **Overall, just know what you're doing.**

You don't need to have 100% of everything planned out in your fic ahead of time. But know where you're generally taking each plot, how everything is going to flow, and have a general idea on some of the events before you really get started. Sometimes, it's best to just let the settings bounce off each other as you move from event to event, to figure out what all needs to be done.

There's countless other little tips and tricks to making a SRW work, but part of the process is discovering things on your own, and I'm starting to run out of ways to put things, so I'll leave you off here. Now go on, get to work on your stuff! Or, if it interests you, read on, as I do a detailed look at the creation of a cast list.


	2. Making Cast List: SRW Long Post Apoc

Ok, so today, we're going to go over a fairly simple "make a SRW cast list" guide.

Now, there's two ways to do this. One is to get some series you like, see if you can find a way to link them together, and go from there. This works - it's how Banpresto does things now - but handled poorly, you might come up with a situation like BX (where individual series are connected, but at times it doesn't feel like a cohesive whole) or significantly worse games. Most of it really depends on what series you get in the first place. So we're not going to focus on that.

The other way is to come up with a central idea, and build the cast list around that. This is more common for fan works, and is easier to do, but must be handled carefully, lest you end up with the extreme doldrums of most of the Classic series. For ease of operations, we'll be doing that today.

Of course, once you decide you're going to do that, you need to come up with a central idea. This can be a lot of things, and it can get pretty esoteric if you're creative - I have one cast list that will show up later that fits this - but again, I'm not trying to be the next great writer today. I'm trying to show something simple and easy. So we'll do something simple, obvious, and "everyone has thought of it as their first or second series" - this is going to be a post-apocalyptic series.

(The other one most people think of first or second is "low power", but I'm doing that with FIRST! So I can't do it here.)

But ah, coming to "post apocalypse" bears a problem of its own! Many series have the apocalypse as something that happened thousands of years ago, way beyond most beings memory, and many others make it a recent thing, that some members of the cast remember. Let's look at some possible series to those two approaches.

First, the "apocalypse was a long time ago" approach.

~ Turn A Gundam

~ Overman King Gainer

~ Blue Gale Xabungle

~ Zoids Genesis

Ok, now for the "apocalypse was a recent deal" approach.

~ After War Gundam X

~ Getter Robo Armageddon

~ Fafner in the Azure

~ Neon Genesis Evangelion

Some decent series on both sides, for sure. Let's go with the first of those for now. We can mix and match, of course - the two main SRWs that were post apoc did - but I find that to personally be a bad idea, so let's not do that for the purposes of this cast list. Our cast list now looks like:

~ Turn A Gundam

~ Overman King Gainer

~ Blue Gale Xabungle

~ Zoids Genesis.

Ok, so that's four series. Not horrible, I suppose, but obviously we need more. So what I usually do after deciding on a few series is see how SRW handled them in the past. Turn A and Xabungle have mostly been mixed with each other, and Xabungle mostly with Turn A and King Gainer, but looking at King Gainer and Zoids Genesis brings up the third member of their trifecta from K. Since it worked well there and some of the concepts were pretty good (surprisingly, given K and all), we'll bring it here.

~ Gun X Sword

Alright, five series. Now, we have some settings together, lets look at see what fits with them! King Gainer and Xabungle allow for big, domed cities, so series with big, domed cities would fit in well. And, hell, the next move is obvious given that.

~ The Big O

~ The Big O S2

But wait, there's more! Some series that haven't been in SRW have big, domed cities as well, and I know one of them!

~ *Megazone 23 Part 3

Well, not 100% a domed city, but the basic concept is there. Of course, adding Megazone as a continuity implies INTERESTING things about the setting, like the obvious "giant death superweapon in the moon that fries things", but that can be used for plot purposes later. Though, if we're using that...

~ Megazone 23

~ Megazone 23 Part 2

We'll call them plotless for now, unless we can find a way to make them a part of the plot. They offer some neat enemy robots to beat up though, and we can probably milk an attack or two more out of the Proto Garland with Part 2.

So let's continue along this line. What other series fit with our current cast list? Well, part of the defining attribute of King Gainer is massive train tracks everywhere, and there's one setting that absolutely loves that, so sure, let's bring in:

~ The Brave Express Might Gaine

We're at 11 shows right now, so we can afford a few more! Gun X Sword is, as it turns out, a series about a prison planet for Earth, and there's a series which fits with that!

~ *Fang of the Sun Dougram

...except, wait, shit, Dougram doesn't fit with literally anything else on our cast list. Well, ok. Discard it.

 _~ *Fang of the Sun Dougram - removed_

It is very likely that you'll discard a series or two along the way. Don't ever let that get you down. Instead, bounce back! I know of another series, an 80s OVA, that would fit in well with the current list and the general "apocalypse happened ages ago" feeling. It's a new to SRW one too. So feast your eyes on:

~ *Relic Armor Legaciam

Bonus: While that OVA clearly wasn't on Earth, neither is Gun X Sword or Zoids Genesis, and Xabungle is up for debate. So its big setting detail is preserved. It's rather obscure to the modern audience, but obscure things can be good - if you show them off well, that will get people curious. Since it's on the cast list, maybe we should look for series that go well with it? The main focus of Legaciam is the preparation to go to a large tower, but it was intended to be the first part of many and never got a sequel (outside of an untranslated novel, so no luck there), so maybe another series with a similar focus could be interesting. Maybe...

~ Lord of Lords Ryu Knight

...but I'm not sure that fits with the rest of the cast list. Let's not.

 _~ Lord of Lords Ryu Knight - removed_

Come to think of it, Legaciam's setup makes less sense in the context of our fic. Wouldn't the Sky People, or the Moon Race, or any of the other powerful beings on this planet fix the inherent issue with the big mirrors blocking all the sunlight not doing their job right? Its setting still fits, mind, so it can stay in, but we'll have to make some edits. That comes later though.

I'm running short on series I've seen that are also "long" post apoc (that is, the apocalypse was a long time ago), but there's still a few. Here's a bit of an odd one:

~ Genesis of Aquarion

This implies interesting things about the setting, but they're things that could be useful. Still, the list is basically exhausted, so maybe it's time to look at other things. For instance, series that go well with the ones we have. And you know, there are a few that go well with Might Gaine...

~ *Meteor Machine Gakusaver

Considering Aquarion, Might Gaine, the Megazones, and to an extent Zoids Genesis, this one has some hilarious connotations. Would be a great vehicle for the OG plot too, which is good, because we haven't discussed the OG plot yet.

14 series is a pretty good total, but a little more certainly won't hurt - 15 and 16 are the lowest modern SRWs go to. We still don't have a Mazinger, but none really fit our setting outside of maybe SKL - and SKL offers its own breed of trouble. But, wait a minute, you could combine its plot with Legaciam and it would make more sense. So that's a good idea!

~ Mazinkaiser SKL

None of the Getters fit though. Manga, Daikessen, and New just don't generally fit, SvN MIGHT fit but I'm wary about it, and Armageddon's the wrong type of apocalypse. And most of the other manga don't have translations. (But I'd really prefer not using Darkness anyway so that's fine.)

15 series is a great number for a starting cast list, so start with that. Once you have a defined series core, then you can begin working on a plot. As you go on making your plot, you may find that another series or two fits the end plot really well, and would go well, and you might find that another doesn't really fit as well. In FIRST, that happened a lot of times on the "removal" front, but only once on the addition front. This is about the point where you want to make sure you've watched every series (I haven't seen Turn A, so were I actually seriously working on the cast list, now would be the time to do that. I'm not seriously working on this cast list, however, as it's an example, so it can wait.)

I do know approximately where this cast list is going though, as it's one I've theorized about many times, so the next two additions are ones that came through that.

~ Aim For The Top 2! Diebuster

~ Aim For The Top! Gunbuster (units only)

When we get into plot talk in the next "chapter", I'll explain what they're here for.

Finally, if your cast list was not bound around an OG idea, now is the time to make some OGs. Now, for the purposes of this excercize, we're not going to bother going into great detail on who the protagonists are, and the original villains are going to be fairly generic ones given the involved series, but elaborate original plots can be a good idea. Don't make them overshadow all the involved series, though. At the end of the day, the best use of the OG is as a viewpoint into the world and something to tie it all together, so remember that.

But don't make literally every enemy faction work together. That's lazy and boring and one of the many reasons why the early Classic era was crap.

We'll talk about what we've assembled in the next "chapter", which will contain the generic prologue text scrawl and all the things a first post needs. The chapter afterwards will be talking about more in depth stuff about this particular plotline.


	3. SRW LPA (How To: Introduction Post)

And so we get into the first idea, the one I showed off the creation of last time.

 **SUPER ROBOT WARS - LONG POST APOCALYPTIC**

 _Legends say that in times of yore, a great cataclysm struck the Earth. Some say that horrible creatures rose from the depths, and others say that they came from another world entirely. Some say that the sun grew too large, burning the surface of the planet, and others say that experimental bombs destroyed the environment. A few whisper of two mighty butterflies, ravaging the surface, or great demons casting spells of ice and darkness over it. Whatever the cause may have been, it is indisputable that the planet lay in ruins._

 _So humanity adapted. Three giant mirrors were placed between the Earth and the Sun, constantly rotating around each other to ward off heat from the planet. Some lived on the moon, freezing themselves and keeping watch over the stars. Some moved into the Domepoli, or Domes, and watched over the people of the planet. But some were unable to go to any of these places and began to live on the outside. Of course, there were still issues. In some areas of the world, strange rocks called Blue Stones were found after the crisis, and in others large towers had to be erected for anyone to be able to live at all._

 _The situation has changed some in recent years. There are many who now live on the moon who wish to move away, and while in years past they have done so by moving away from their home planet, some now want to move back onto it. In a rather strange incident, a meteor hit the Dome known as Nouvelle Tokyo City some years ago. One island in the middle of the sea has become entirely impossible to access due to a massive windstorm surrounding it, and people in the landmasses surrounding it have reported as getting very large headaches._

 _On top of this, many of the northern Domepoli on the northern part of the world's larger continent fell under the control of an organization known as London IMA many years ago. London IMA's control is disliked by many, causing some Domes to fracture into great Exoduses, as people attempt to move to other areas of the world. But London IMA's control of the railroad tracks crisscrossing the country and their powerful Overmen made them nearly unstoppable... until a mysterious organization known as the "Yuusha Tokyuu", the Brave Express, began to combat them._

 _Meanwhile, across the world, mysterious disappearances have been happening. Forty years ago, the massive Dome known as Paradigm City disappeared without a trace, and while that was the only disappearance at the time, six months ago it started happening on a smaller scale - sections of Domes would be depopulated as mysterious beings showed up. Fortunately, during recent such heists, an organization calling itself the Fraternity has begun to interfere._

 _The world has become a chaotic place once more, and many who know of the legends are restless. The days of yore may be returning once again..._

* * *

SERIES LIST:

(bold indicates series that haven't been in actual SRWs as of the making of this list)

~ Turn A Gundam

~ Mazinkaiser SKL

~ Blue Gale Xabungle

~ **Relic Armor Legaciam**

~ **Megazone 23 III**

~ Megazone 23 (units only)

~ Megazone 23 Part 2 (units Only)

~ The Brave Express Might Gaine

~ **Meteor Machine Gakusaver**

~ The Big O

~ The Big O S2

~ Overman King Gainer

~ Aim For The Top 2! Diebuster

~ Aim For The Top! Gunbuster (units only)

~ Genesis of Aquarion

~ Genesis of Aquarion OVA (attacks for Aquarion)

~ Zoids Genesis

~ Gun X Sword

* * *

[A/N]: This would be a good place to have an author's note, AFTER all the important information, but I don't really have anything to say in that regard, so we'll just hook it up to the "how to" section.

* * *

Ok, so first off: If backstory isn't inherently ridiculously important to your setting, don't have it in the opening text scrawl, unless your purpose is to mimic an opening bit from a different series (like how Neo just wholecloth had the opening to Ryu Knight happen when your squad goes to Earth Tear.). Anyone who's seen Zoids Genesis will notice that I didn't mention the Sky People, and that's because while they are of great importance, they're not some really big backstory event to the story that I need to include them in the first post. That's something to get into when we do Zoids Genesis's plot later on. Same with Gun X Sword's Original 7, or the crash landing of the survivors of the Megazone and subsequent founding of Eden. If the backstory is mentioned within the first 5 minutes of the first episode, though, it's probably best to bring it up - thus Gakusaver's meteor.

Also, if the backstory is intended to be hidden - like the stuff behind Might Gaine's creation - don't talk about it in the opening text scrawl! That's obviously a horrible idea.

You need to hit all the important setting notes to your combined settings, to allow people to understand how the general state of the world is, and of course bringing up events that can be clearly placed to the series involved will help that. But be careful! If your text scrawl is over a page on Word, you should start looking at it cautiously, and if it gets over two pages it might be time to take a little down. This is meant to be the introduction to the setting, if it's multiple pages in length people aren't going to want to read through it! And if your cast list is so large that it's impossible to handle the text scrawl in that way, shrink your cast list, you have a problem.

You can make multiple text scrawls, of course. After major, paradigm shifting events, you can have a second text scrawl, like what Z does after Break The World. I wouldn't do it too much though. OE had text scrawls all the damn time, dumping most of its plot that way, and you most certainly do not want to take advice on how to make your fan work from OE. Only do it when it's very important that you explain how things have changed through a scrawl and can't at least do it through the characters.

For the most part, this covers how you should handle an opening post, and how I'll be doing opening posts in the rest of this thread. I haven't really discussed what this SRW would be like, though! After all, I did spend some time theorizing it, it's a legitimate list. That's what the next post will be about - the major known plot points that this SRW would have. After that we'll relax into a "I post the lists as they come to me and then explain them" pattern.


	4. SRW LPA General Plot Jist

So, uh, turns out not having access to Word for half a year really kills your ability to write things. That said, I said I'd sum up what ideas did go into that design, and that is something I intend on doing.

* * *

To point out the most important events in this fic, it's first important to go over the backstory elements - how things fit together. So, with that said:

12000+ years prior to the fic's starting, Gunbuster happened. Large masses of alien space monsters were discovered, and Earth geared up for a full war, converting basically their entire economy for that effort. What was left went into preservation efforts - bases on the moon, a few colony fleets, and some other things were prepared. That overall turned out to be a good idea, as between the gap from Episode 5 to Episode 6 a group of alien lifeforms known as the Fallen Angels invaded. This was a problem, as Buster Machine tech was what was being produced at the time, and Buster Machines and their accompanying battleships were significantly too powerful to work on Earth and be able to use all their weapons.

So Earth adapted. They made scores of Mobile Suits led by the Turn A Gundam and Turn X Gundam. They made large Overmen, with powers that bordered on the ridiculous (which are still well within Gunbuster Earth capabilities amusingly - Brunhilde making black holes isn't special when Buster Machines are powered by the things!). They made seven powerful Armors, fully regenerating machines that bonded with their pilots. They made large Big types, nearly impossible to destroy. They made smaller, faster machines, capable of transforming from regular vehicles in a flash to fire powerful beams. And that mostly worked, they were doing fairly well, but just in case they sent the colony fleets away and made a final, secret weapon - a massive superweapon built into the moon, built to target any enemies of man who got into or were attempting to leave atmosphere.

Matters actually got better for a while. Though the battle at the core resulted in the loss of Gunbuster itself, the people in charge knew that Gunbuster would return eventually. (They didn't - and couldn't - know that when Gunbuster was activating its warp drive, a being in the form of a young boy took notice of it and stashed it away, but the program that was known as Young Boy A was intrigued by the pilots' willingness to give their own lives for everyone else.) Jung Freud quickly took over, and in an extremely shocking twist, one of the Fallen Angels actually defected - an Angel by the name of Apollonius had fallen in love with a human, and tore off his own wings, which fell and turned themselves into the Machine God Aquarion. He also brought his angelic dog, Pollon, which converted and transformed a few metallic husks into fully living beings - these "Zoids" could only realistically live in some areas, as they needed a specific energy source, but in a world war that supply was easy to get for the ones that bonded with pilots. And more Buster Machines were starting to be created as well.

…It's just unfortunate that everything went south around that point. Another being from another universe, the one the Fallen Angels were attempting to get rid of, attacked. This being - Black Noir - shellacked every side of the conflict, corrupting many Overdevils, Zoids, Bigs, and other machines. (Interestingly, it seems that around this point, a corrupted Big died in combat with a Fallen Angel, which created a very interesting new being - the legend of the Kaiser is a widely known one on this planet) Even the Turns were turned against Humanity. Still, with its Armors, remaining weapons, and massive moon laser, humanity still stood something of a chance… until Black Noir, fed up, _changed_ things. Things got really weird at that point, and there's a lot of belief about what the particular cataclysm was, but the actual truth is that Black Noir slapped reality in the face, and that resulted in a whole lot going screwy. Part of the planet died, multiple cobalt bomb explosions wrecked most of the rest of the planet, the sun grew larger and was burning the atmosphere, the plates shifted and continents moved all over the place, it was a bad time. Black Noir seemingly left at the time, and loads of shit started springing up as humanity slowly got back on its feet.

Multiple people left Earth entirely. Some went to the moon, burying the Turn X with them and ensuring the satellite weapon wouldn't be usable. Some went to other places in the Solar System to keep a ready eye out for invaders. Some people took to massive cities in the sky, where they could monitor the Earth's progress, and these ones commandeered the Seven Armors. On Earth, Aquarion was left to the hands of Fudou, a man who sprung up soon after the conflict ended, who hid it away. Turn A was buried, too. The Zoids were incapable of living on any continent except for a single one, which was ironically also the worst off after the war - so badly off that the Sky People created massive towers to reinvigorate the land. Everyone else outside of that continent either moved to Domes or survived in the wastes. And to stop the sun from burning the planet to death, three massive reflective disks were created to bounce the sunlight, and maintained by a tower powered by an old Buster Machine reactor on an island. A group of humans stayed on that island to keep watch over it.

And Jung Freud, former leader of the Earth, realized that while it wasn't her fault, she'd need to make sure that everything went right so that Noriko and Kazumi would have a planet to come back to. So she helped set a lot of that up, and then converted her mind into an artificial intelligence, burying herself and her Sizzler Black. That was the end of the Buster Machines, as the only ones left were 1 and 2, off in space, and both 7 and 6, which had gone missing in the conflicts…

11000 years before the story starts: A few of the colony ships found their objectives and started settling down. Humanity in many names survived, and slowly began spreading once more. Some of them found relics from old conflicts, and societies started to be brought up around them, with interplanetary groups rising and falling. (So, yes, all aliens from Gakusaver are humans, or at least were humans) Some of the ships didn't, however. A few still ran around the stars. Interestingly, due to a navigational error, eventually two of the ships started heading back to their original Solar System…

5000 years before the story starts: And it was around this point when they got close. The two ships encountered one of the last remaining Space Monsters (as at this point the very few who survived the battle at the galactic core had been hunted down by other colony fleets), which managed to mostly destroy the two ships before getting shot with the moon laser. The corpse of that Space Monster was taken to one of Jupiter's moons, and as for the few survivors from the incident… one group managed to land on Earth, and founded a new domed City, known as Eden. Another group ended up in the Sky City, but only the leader survived very long. Hilariously, both sides ended up getting the same idea - Shogo, the leader of Eden, uploaded his mind into the central computer guiding Eden known as Bahamut, and BD uploaded his mind into a computer to save himself in the Sky People's city.

It was also approximately around this time that every continent except for the Zoids one started crisscrossing their lands with train tracks, as trains were an easy, protected way around the wastes. Though, around this time, one of the continents mostly abandoned the dome structure, as it had become safe to live outside once more.

40 years before the start: Black Noir returned, but this time, he was a lot sneakier. His opening act was to steal away one of the Domed Cities, the one with the few remaining Bigs buried beneath it - Paradigm. But he implanted a lot of ideas into people's heads, slowly starting a few conflicts - mass Exodising started now, as did the backlash against it, a Sky Person who had been one of their surface-watchers slowly started to go insane, the Might Gaine project started up, some people on the moon started to look to resettle the Earth by force, the later phases of the Innocent Project (which was a resounding success overall) were failing, and a child in the city of the Sky began to dream of being a god. And in the city of Eden, Shogo Yahagi started hearing whispers in his head…

To make matters worse, all over the world, warlords are beginning to spring up. To fight these, old robots start getting dug up, and heroes generally save the day - notable amongst them are the El Dora team - but sometimes they're not totally successful. Eventually, lots of programs are started up in response to this, including the Might Gaine project.

Jung Freud reawoke because of this and sent out a call.

~13 years before the start: Things are starting to get heated. The Fallen Angels are slowly awakening - but with them, Fudou is waking up - and in a strange incident, a meteor crashed to the Earth - a meteor containing Buster Machine 6. To Jung's consternation, however, it wouldn't reactivate. She began to coordinate with the Sky People, who started sending more people to the surface. One of these went to the Digald Empire, which slowly became a conquering army. And the insane Sky Person, who had been going by the name of the Clawed Man, killed another of their operatives (one searching for a new pilot for Dann of Thursday.) The Clawed Man was chased down by Gadved, who began to spy on him.

~5 years before the start: Buster Machine 7 shows up on Mars, having lost her memories. The Might Gaine project hits a snag when the main two people working on it mysteriously died, and around the same time quite a few notable scientists started either dying or going into hiding. The Exodus has started in full at this point. The Fallen Angels have shown back up, but Jung's call brought in the modern version of the old Buster Corps - known as the Fraternity, they used vastly weakened versions of the old Buster Machines. These, along with the eventual reemergence of Aquarion, helped hold back the weakened Fallen Angels.

Meanwhile, a mercenary organization dug up two ancient robots with quite impressive power. Noting that the feminine one could give the more masculine one wings, and its general design seemingly matching the old legends of the Kaiser, they named the larger one the Demon God Kaiser Skull - Mazinkaiser SKL. Around this point, a warlord managed to escape with a few of his soldiers to a mysterious island with a massive tower, guarded heavily by its inhabitants. He would have been killed then and there if not for another warlord pursuing him, which created a three way standoff. The two warlords began to drain the engine within the island, which caused it to start doing strange, unintended things, creating a massive gravity curtain around the island. Before that could happen, however, the island's defenders managed to send a single special device out.

Where everything is at the start:

~Turn A is about to start. It's on the same continent (mostly) as Aquarion and Legacium, which are also fairly soon to start. Legacium happens fairly close to Kaiser SKL's island. Aquarion is able to get around the world, however, so its Episode 1 part starts on the other continent.

~Xabungle, King Gainer, Megazone 23 Part III, Might Gaine, Gakusaver, and Gun X Sword generally take place on a different continent. Xabungle is right at its start, Megazone 23 is going to be on its way in soon (the rebellion is slowly picking up steam.) The Brave Express has started up in general and will be around Episode 1 material at the start. Gun X Sword isn't quite there yet, but will be there soon enough. King Gainer is there too. Gakusaver is fairly soon to start.

~The Moon Race are slowly starting to wake up and want to take over the world. Even the military hardliners won't use the massive weapon inside the moon for that, though - that's a bad idea for all of them.

~Diebuster should be starting soon.

~So is Zoids Genesis, which gets a small continent (or a big island?) all to itself. GxS moves here eventually.

So most of the plots are right about to start. That's generally a good place to have your fic at - if you don't know how to handle your series, do it right at the start of all of them. Episode 1 is almost always one of the most recognizable parts of a show, a few fringe cases aside (Gunbuster is the big one, but I can think of a few you could argue about). So, let's go into the major events the fic would have.

The OG character isn't something I've thought of. That's ok - while I'll probably write something on OG characters, you don't actually strictly _NEED_ them. Compact 1 got along well enough without them, and honestly the allied OGs barely matter in some games (like Alpha Gaiden or a few of the older ones) so for now we'll go without. If I was going to write this up, I'd probably make one or two up, though. The main purpose of OG characters is to provide a viewpoint, but as the OG games have shown, that's not really necessary either - you can just focus on the characters already in the story without having one specific viewpoint.

The big thing here is Black Noir, and what he implies for the universe. Black Noir, for those of you unaware, is the final boss from Might Gaine. He showed up midway through the story and basically outright said that he set the universe up as entertainment, much like a TV show - and he was planning a bad ending for everyone so he could finish it and move on. That of course dovetails into Big O, which… is supposed to be fiction, in universe, but it also ties into Gakusaver, where the universe is described as being in a flask - a "science experiment" that is about to end, about what happens when beings come into contact with technology far past their own level.

As Gunbuster showed, the answer is "they go out and ream the universe a new one", ridding it of most of the Space Monsters. The Fallen Angels were a planned variable, (Black Noir forced them into that role in the first place) but Apollonius proved that they were more than they were created to be. So he personally went down and killed humanity, entering the trials himself. All the various colonies sent out with bits of supertechnology founded new civilizations, and genetic drift and twelve thousand years created the alien civilizations and worlds of Gakusaver.

Black Noir is at least indirectly the cause of literally every problem in the story outside of Gakusaver's, Turn A's (to a small extent), and arguably King Gainer's. He made Jiin into a villain, causing the Zoids Genesis plot. He did every bad thing he did in Might Gaine, of course. He caused a rise in warlords that eventually made two warlords invade the island with the Gravity Curtain, causing both the Mazinkaiser SKL and the Legaciam plot. He corrupted the mission of the Innocent, causing the Xabungle plot. He screwed with the Clawed Man's mind, causing Gun X Sword, he messed up the ally/enemy sensor programming for the Buster Machines that caused the Diebuster plot (and wiped Nono's memories), he attacked Bahamut and screwed with Shogo's mind, causing Megazone 23 Part 3, and while he doesn't outright cause the issues in King Gainer, he didn't exactly hurt it either. And he blasted the World Tree, causing the current issues with Aquarion, which wouldn't have even been a problem if he hadn't effectively introduced the Fallen Angels in the first place. As such, he's the effective final boss.

If there was to be an OG final boss, it'd be the people who originally designed the experiment - your team trying to prove that they have a right to exist, delaying the countdown to their death. This isn't totally necessary, as Gakusaver provides a way out normally, but if you wanted to go that route it'd be doable. It would require minorly different plotting near the end though.

Now, onto major crossover bits IN THE STORY.

~Gakusaver was originally a Buster Machine - specifically, 6. It was designed to work on Earth, much like 7 (Nono) but time changed it significantly. Nina Robo was mostly a mistake caused by the specific way they woke it up, as was the need for eight pilots.

~Jung Freud, B.D., and Gen Fudou are the cause of a lot of the better things in the world right now. Jung helped the Brave Express get started, got the ball rolling on the Exoduses, and was part of the reason Fraternity started all that time ago. B.D. helped Rey get started, which… had a few negative effects, but also a few positive ones, and he also made sure Ron was on-scene on Zi. Fudou kickstarted a lot of mecha excavations, which led to Turn A and Aquarion being found, and also keeps an eye on Paradigm. The three are loosely in touch, but they are all working towards the same goal.

~Aquarion, King Gainer, and Xabungle are the really early shows. The SKL duo come around at some point, and they pass by a few places as well. El Dora V joins early, you encounter Van a few times, and you pass Eden in time to see Megazone 23 Part III's protagonist as well. The Brave Express shows up once or twice as well, but only Might Gaine is ready - the Bombers and Divers are in Nouvelle Tokyo.

~Gakusaver causes a lot of the early impetus for people moving around. The Gakusaver villains use their "trap city and take it with us" scheme, except they hit the Exodus. This causes you to go all over the damn place, seeing early Turn A events, early Zoids Genesis events, Paradigm City (you get Roger, when you leave a few other people leave as well) and even a trip to Mars that starts the Diebuster plot. But the last stop before you go back is into deep space, where a partly skeletal robot is picked up with its pilots.

~Gunbuster immediately gets stolen by a large black robot, which its pilots (who weren't in it at the time) identify as a Sizzler. It leaves behind their early-show robots though. Jung starts showing up in missions around this point, becoming more active. King Gainer's plot is finished rather early in the game, as in Z, and when you get to Yapan you pick up the Might Gaine team for good. That's around the time you get Gallier too.

~Your team mostly sticks together at that point, as they get a distress call from Eden, which is being attacked by "terrorists". You arrive to help, but before you get there you find the protagonist of Part 3, who tells you what's really going on (basically: Bahamut's gone mad, is planning on destroying the city and tried to use your team to stop it.) You go in and take the computer down, but in doing so, you gain the ire of the Innocent, causing Xabungle problems leading to the Gallier. The Megazone 23 Part 3 protag joins in the Proto Garland as per the end of that OVA

~To escape the Innocent, you run off to Zi. Van joins you because he believes the Clawed Man to be on that continent. A lot of mid show Gun X Sword events and Zoids Genesis events happen. Your team leaves the area with Digald mostly cowed and the Clawed Man seemingly having left (he didn't, he just found an island nearby) because you have bigger fish to fry.

~The SKL people get called away because of the Gravity Curtain issue. They leave your team to directly oppose it, but you can't get in. You have a solution, though - the large storms are forming as an automatic defense, and there's a "key" to it out there. The entire Legaciam OVA happens as you pick said key up (…it'd be two stages. Maybe one. Not a very long OVA), and you handle a bit of Turn A stuff around this point as well.

~Mazinkaiser SKL is the big midpoint thing. Once you handle it, Black Noir takes more direct notice of you, and lots of strange things begin to happen. Paradigm reenters the real world, rather near where the Exodus let off. Multiple villains step up their attacks. The "Space Monsters" (Buster Machines) begin an attack on Earth, though they're stopped a few stages later when Nono regains her memories. The Overdevil rises. You're rushing around the world trying to stop things from happening, but as you do this your army gets bigger - stopping Jiin gets you most of the Zoids Genesis enemies, for instance, and Jung joins midgame, bringing back Gunbuster - though the impetus is the Space Monster near Jupiter getting free and attacking Earth. This is also when the Gakusaver villains really come in force.

~Schwarzwald joins, by the way. The fact that this hasn't happened yet bugs the shit out of me. He spends most of the game wandering, fights you once or twice, helps you when he's in the area and you get attacked by a swarm of Archetypes (why does he always have them as mooks the one in the show wanted him dead), and then joins when Big Duo Inferno shows up attempting to kill you because at that point, he's figured out enough of the truth of the world to know that your side (which has Jung, B.D., and Fudou, and are opposing Black Noir) is the correct one, as you're the one trying to preserve human history.

~Shogo also eventually joins in the original Garland with the original Eve, because he'd survive this version of the Megazone Part 3 plot. (He originally planned to suicide-by-protagonist as in canon, but B.D. talked him out of it.)

~The last few big things happen around the same time. After basically every faction is put to flight except the Aquarion villains, the Might Gaine villains, the Gakusaver villains, and the Clawed Man, the Clawed Man unveils his plan to use a variety of technologies combined with the ancient laser on the moon to wipe Earth clean, which he believes is necessary because there is no point in opposing a force as strong as Black Noir. You stop him, and then go to terminate the laser. This has the bad side effect of causing Black Noir to finally start Black Christmas, in which an initial attack that besieges the entire world is used as a feint for the final Space Monster to wipe the slate clean. The Fallen Angels join - at this point, only Touma, Otoha, and Futaba are left - as do the Gakusaver villains. That still isn't quite enough, but Diebuster does finally turn the tide.

~When your group wipes out said space monster, the energy caused by its death warps you to the galactic core, the same place destroyed by Gunbuster 12000 years ago. This is where Black Noir is hiding. When you defeat him, he laughs, noting that your time is up anyway, as the experiment is over - but Young Boy A notes that due to the universal destruction being based on lightspeed, you still have a hundred million or so years before the energy destruction wave gets from the universal center to your home. The end is mostly about the characters setting up for the future, trying to prepare for later years. Denountment.

* * *

Right, so, uh, lost all the cast lists I was originally going to have for later things. Oh well. I might go into how to make an OG character (if you think it's hard, it's easier than you'd think. If you think it's easy, it's probably much, much harder than you're putting into it effort-wise.). Or this'll go unused until the next time something makes me make a cast list. Who knows?


End file.
